My Sweet Prince
by scathingsarcasm
Summary: An angsty oneshot about the failure of the soulmate system and it's effects on people, specifically Dan Howell. "Society it is not is a false concept. It is a house in which the foundations are built on lies, fallacies of the world. The outside which is lined with red, yellow and brown is a façade. Built up layers of brick build to hide what's inside."


**A/N:**

**The idea of this was originally just a broken soulmate au, but then I was replaying a song I loved and this idea hit me. The song which inspired most of this is 'My sweet prince by Placebo' The song is about a comparison of love and drug addiction. So this became a perfect inspiration, the idea of fairy tales came from the song itself. The idea if dragon's is taken from the idea of chasing the dragon which is slang for inhaling heroin vapours, white horse is a real slang word for heroin. I know basically nothing about heroin except what I read on talk to Frank and what I could research on the internet so I apologise if anything is inaccurate.**

Trigger warning: Drug addiction, implied suicide, moderately graphic mentions of homoerotic sex, homophobic slurs.

_**My Sweet Prince**_

Society it is not coherent.

It is a false concept.

It is a house in which the foundations are built on lies, fallacies of the world. The outside which is lined with red, yellow and brown is a façade. Built up layers of brick build to hide what's inside.

When you allow your mind to investigate the idea, to clearly think about it. Allow the word, the concept to stew for more than a few moment's you realize this. Once you peel back the brick work and all that is left are the foundations you finally see the truth. The whole concept of society is merely polite morality, forced words and actions. An exact blue print that we must all fit. It force feeds and grows a culture that isn't real, it forces morals where they do not belong. It forces beliefs on the belief-less, it paints a blank canvas with its ideas and morals, forcing it full of various shades of black, white and grey, but never colours. Society is very much like the idea of a soul mate, the whole concept is a lie.

Forced.

The idea of a soul mate is a lie, such a thing cannot exist, when you think about it. Love is not made, it is not manufactured like this pencil I write with, or this paper I defile with my thoughts in the form of scattered words and half empty, half full sentences. Love is not predetermined, it is not written, it is not set. It is free and that is where the idea of a soul mate falls apart. Love is not mechanical it is organic. It is not a machine made of intrinsic parts, it is not cold steel and brass, it is what's in the leaves, it is what is in the sky and it is alive. It is organic, biological.

In theory it is perfect, in actuality it is failed.

Because if it wasn't my soul mate wouldn't have somebody else's name etched in to their skin. My soul mate wouldn't belong to someone else.

Soul mates, we are told by the elders in our lives are the pinnacle of our existence, our whole purpose in life is to find this person. We are told this person is the other side of us, that there were once these beings who were whole and took such a thing for granted, they were vain and selfish. They were unappreciative of the lives and bodies they were given. So one day they were split and now we have to find this other piece of us, we are told from the day we can comprehend such that this is gospel. We are told that we will never be whole until we find this other piece of us, our soul mate. We are now just one half, an reconstituted body, which spends its entire existences searching and pining for the other parts of us we would always know and feel missing. That other chunk of our heart which when realigned would allow our hearts to beat once more.

The stories are told to every child once they are five, they are told in the contexts of princesses and princess, with castles and happily ever after. And as a result we expect such an end, but nearly not enough of us get such. I remember my grandmother leaning over me and telling me the wonders of a soul mate. Her delicate ivory silk soft hands pushing back my hair before she began, her voice calling me her sweet prince before she would once more tuck me in with her sweet words.

She would tell me glittering tales about true love, princes saving princesses from evil, fire breathing dragons. I would imagine their hot smoke soaked breaths curling down on my neck. She would tell me other stories about how great knights on beautiful grand white steeds would come in and take a sad princess from her life full of mundanely and heart break. I would then imagine myself saving another and it would send me away on sweet true love themed dreams.

She told me tales which created their own paths in my mind, destroying the truth if the world around me. She told me dazzling tales of heroines and heroes. She told me tales of towers and true love. Her stories painted rainbow coloured worlds in my head one element at a time, as if her words were a paintbrush. The world were created quickly and magically each crafted with a few sweet wordser .

Pristine images of what I expected my eventual life to be. She would spend hours in these little worlds, teaching me of princes and princesses, of dragons and evils and of triumphant true love. How the name on my arm would become a stronger weapon I could ever envision. It's all false it's all a story, real life is not like that. Real life is pain, suffering, loneliness, a course of pain which leads in to an inevitable death. To pretend it is anything else is foolish. Fairytales do not exist and this certainly isn't one.

As a child we are told so much, all these stories which make being a grownup seem wonderful. They make it seem like every boy and every girl gets their own little happy ending, they make being a grown up look like something so very charmed. But it is not, now is it? Not really? No. Life is not like that, life is reality, a reality which is crumbling through the acidic lie which melt down any strength it has.

She sold me lies like they were drugs and I took them like I was addicted.

Her colourless skin coloured once more as she spoke of her deceased husband, the light to her eyes brought back, the life to her skin replenished. She would speak of him fondly, a woman very much still in love. She had a happily ever after, she was lucky, she was one of the lucky ones. Her heart beat now fully, each beat sound and full. Even now he was gone, she still had that.

So as I grew I believed that was what a soul mate was, a soul mate was a happily ever after. I dreamt of making someone feel the way my grandmother clearly felt. I dreamed of being the one to paint starts in another's eyes, to be the one to bring colour and sun light to their darkest skies.

To be their one and only.

I was nine when I realised the system was a broken one and that love wasn't as simple as happily ever after. Parents are your insight in to life, they are the light which guides you through life. They are the light house to your ship, they guide you a way no other can. They influence you on levels you cannot understand. They are the dictionary you learn all semantics' from, if they are broken, then so are your meanings. It started in a war of mere words, but escalated to violence. From the bruising of words, to actual discolourment on the others skin. They went from throwing words to throwing glasses. They then when from this to putting hands on the other, to all out violence which echoed through the house in screams. Which would bounce harshly from wall to wall climbing the stairs and calling out to all others. Sharp piercing sounds which sent shivers down the spines of the neighbors as they settled down with their children to watch the Simpson's at six pm. They would ignore them of course, nothing like a collective voice to create silence. My mother would wake hours later and the violence would settle once more erasing all else in the air.

As small rumblings of harsh words were thrown out in to the never ending space of the expanding world I would take off up to my room, my legs shaking as I took the stairs two by two. I would cover my ears with my hands, I would lean against the wall and wish this was the happily ever after I was promised, I would allow the words of my grandmother to take me to a land where perfection did exist and where soul mates did too. I would stick my fingers in my ears, blocking out the world war three that had broken out over the dinner table, I would block out the ammo based on letters and words. Shouting out nonsensical phrases and the proverbial 'la la la', blocking out the sound until they melted away entirely as the world of my grandmothers words was created around me. Colours painting the darkness away. One night as the moon chased the sun away as the stars timidly followed, my mother and I left my father behind.

You'd think after years of awful wars between parents this would be the part where the world in this story gets better and things finally work out for this little antagonist, but this is not true. My new house was not a home. It was in a neighbourhood which could easily been from a still of that new episode of Crimewatch, as dodgy black and white CCTV documented a poor elderly's attack at the hands of some guy named after a cheap wine. It was a great concert jungle in every sense, large tower blocks shot up from the ground like a great grey shaded tree, it vines and leaves the remains of washing lines and left over socks which blew in the breeze. Windows bolted and covered in iron scars, graffiti was the only colour in this concert dystopia, the only colour in an otherwise monotone world.

This world I ended up in was not kind. This was not a world I belonged in, I was too posh, too camp, too … gay. The words they shouted out to me reflected these differences. I would come home to what should be my shelter and often find the spray painted on the repainted egg white of my front door once more. In large aggressive blood red letters "Fag." The word etched up on the door once more like a gash, fitting the silhouette of the previous scar. This word followed me like a shadow, its essence always there always behind me trailing me, haunting me. This wasn't the only thing haunting me there were other ghosts, ghosts of hands round my neck painted blue and purple. Shoe prints on my chest painted much the same. These ghosts haunted me for years, one always around a corner. Always one step behind me, painting my already darkened world and even less saturated tone of monochrome.

It was at this point I realised just how broken and fractured this system truly is, a whole society build on the praising of love, but then throws it back in to another's face if it doesn't fit the exact sculpted mould that others deem it must fit. Because if the mould isn't fitted, people simply break it down, remould it till it does. They simply take away parts of people until they either fit the mould, or fall through it, my parents did the second…I hoped I would not do the first.

But even the strongest force of hope couldn't help me.

It started of simple, a few drags of a cigarette every time I grew tired of frustration. It then became a drag of something very different while at a party as music sent vibrations throughout my body and then it shifted to the brown powder that made me see dragons. It was this magical brown powder that began to turn my shit storm of a life in to one of those wonderful make believe fairy tales, only this was reality, so the colour palette of my fairy tales were nothing but monotone. I turned to my fairy tales, to the character's which I had come to seek comfort in, only this time I saw the truth in these tales and they weren't beautiful, like these stories my grandmother painted with her once colourful words. No, I saw the filth and ugliness of these characters, because this is reality and reality is hardly ever beautiful. Lies are pretty, lies are beautiful and sadly the truth is hideous. But the truth is reality and reality is all I have anymore.

People always mention how addictive heroin is, but you never truly believe them.

You believe that it will only be once that you do it, that it was one moment of weakness at a party full of people. You tell yourself that you will not become one of those half a live people who substituted a soulmate for an addiction. But then it calls out to you, it makes you sweat, the mere thought of it leaves you damp and your heat beats out a samba, it racing at the speed of your thoughts. The smell of want lingers on your skin and then on your clothes.

You do it once more, telling yourself no more. But then you begin to feel the fleeting urge of desire and you do it once more. Then it consumes you and all you think about is it, it becomes your reason to wake up in the morning. It becomes the main focus of your life. You are the one, instead of the reason your heart beats fast, it become the reason your heart beats. Forget a soulmate, this becomes the other half of your being. The idea of a soulmate might be a lie, but for once I do actually feel like a whole person.

You still perspire when you can't get it, you're still consumed by it, you then question then why you started this. But after a while you no longer care, because it makes all of your pain dissolve as the world around you becomes blurry and your thoughts become no existence. All the pain in your life is gone and you question how you ever went without it. It takes your life and turns in to oblivion. Everything fades away, as if that word was one of mere words and all that exists is you.

But for me this became more than an addiction, this became an obsession.

I become tied to the world of words my grandmother told me of, when I breathed in the ash white smoke. The cells of my throat screamed hot fury in utter resistance as I inhaled and then when I exhaled I saw dragons. The silver smoke flowed through my mouth and for once I could see the truth in the stories my grandmother told.

Dragons existed, they just weren't reptiles and they weren't covered in scales. They were human, addicts who breathed out the vapours of their obsession to become whole. They bared no scales and they weren't beautiful, but at this point I no longer expected them to be. They were not creatures of fire which came in colours of red and green, but that did not mean they were not dragons.

Knights exist too, but they aren't royalty, they are just strangers you give yourself to in the night and while fucking this stranger you don't think about the name on your wrist, you don't think about the failure of this social system, you don't think about the red spray painted words and more importantly… you don't think about anything, only the sensations they ascend on you. You feel everything, but also feel nothing. You feel every inch of them as they push in to you, but you feel no pain of the life you ignore.

White knights exist too, but they aren't saviours, they simply take you away. White horse I would learn is a street name for heroin, it's not a stretch to make the connection, if I was still myself I might have laughed at the irony of my grandmothers stories, but now I just allow the white night to take me away, because now that is all it's good for.

From then on I don't think about the blank letters which are carved in to my wrist, I take to covering them with layer upon layer of Sharpie, my knights find it off putting looking at the name of my lover as they spill their cum in to my ass, I'd be bothered if I could find it in myself to acknowledge the letters themselves. I find that I don't and the layers of Sharpie pile up. The permeant stain on my wrist isn't beautiful, but then again nothing in this world is when it comes to me. I am just another ugly mess that the system created and now refused to clean up. I am the rotting foundation that remains there simply because it would be too much effort to remove, or fix it. I am part of this hideous untrue system and I hate it, but move over I hate myself.

It takes three years for a friend of mine to realise just how in deep I am, how my knights leave bruises and how I spend more time with the dragons, while my white knight takes me away.

Chris decides that I need rehab, I can't find it in myself to fight with him, so simply I don't. I go away from a month and then Chris decides I need a job, once more I don't fight him. He's the only person in my life now who actually cares about me and I don't wish to waste that. I am many things to many people, but loved in not one of those things. I still allow my white knight to take me away, I still fuck knights and I still waste hours with dragons, it's just now I lie to Chris and my therapist about it. Chris then decided I need to leave my crack den styled flat, I once more don't argue.

Chris is the only person in my world I could consider beautiful, he is my only truth in this world. He was the only person not destroyed by this world that we lived in, he was the only light with in this world. A candle lit beacon that I refused to snuff out, because if I died he'd be the only one effected and I didn't want to be the one to destroy his purity in this filthy world. No, I would allow the world to do it its self. I listen to him simply because if anyone in this world could be a prince it could be one. My grandmother passed away around the time the blood coloured graffiti began to scar my door and I haven't seen my mother in two years. Chris is the closest thing I have to family and as much as I hate myself I love him more. It isn't romantic, never has been. But it's something.

Finally someone has decided to fix that broken foundation, it wasn't the owner, but a tenant.

I end up in a two bedroomed flat in London with a guy whose name is on my wrist. He doesn't know that of course, my Sharpie habit has gone away about as well as my heroin one. But apparently he's not my soulmate, as the name James stands out proudly against his ivory painted wrists, he doesn't ask about the Sharpie.

Most don't, most just assume that the person died or something equally horrific and that I, the ever loving partner simply don't want to look at a reminded anymore. I've never interrupted them, I've never argued with them. Why would I?.. The fake painted sympathy they give me in a glance is better than any look of utter disgust they would give me at the truth, so instead I give them a façade, as the foundations decay. He assumes my prince, or princess is dead and I let him, because that's easier to explain that my knights.

Phil, I decided weeks later is a fine house mate. I mean the blacked haired man still eats my cereal every morning and I still stumble in to the kitchen to find sugar on the granite sides, but he doesn't question me about my disappearances and he doesn't ask about the Sharpie scratched wrists. He's weirdly sweet in a way I have never known and he seems to actually enjoy my overbearing cynical presence and his house doesn't smell like a crack den, it's the most I could have asked for really.

He's a twenty-five year old computer programmer who looks like he shouldn't exist. Ivory skin which looks almost inhuman, but is not repulsive. In fact if I were less cynical I might even call it beautiful, he juxtaposed this with strands of ebony which sway about his face. The two colours should clash, but they don't. In fact I might call him beautiful, because he is uncorrupted. He doesn't see the hideous nature of this world, he only see the façade. I should find him repulsive, his nativity and faith in soulmates disgusting. But I don't. He speaks for hours about 'James' and how he wishes to find him, this idea makes something cruel and decaying settle in my chest. But I ignore this feeling and let if fade as I disappear over the fresh-hold of the house and in to the night once more.

This sickeningly painful clenching and ceasing of my chest doesn't fade away as easily as the rest of the world, it seems to be the only remnant of reality and I hate it. I hate it because it's real and reality is hideous.

It's only months later I realise the letters on my wrist are his.

By this time my therapist has realised I'm still using and has once more thrown me in to rehab, this time until they are sure I'm clean. It's only when I'm gone for three months that I realise that I miss the weird handling of my cereal, only now I focus more on the carved marble structure of his clear cut firm and think fingers rather my shreddies which flake on top and the sugar which covers most of our kitchen sides with tiny white stars which glisten under the flouring light every morning as I wistfully search for coffee. These things I once hated I now miss.

It's not just his repulsive habits I miss; The gleam of oceanic blue eyes, the smile of a man child, the rough Northern tones of his rumbling voice, that calls out to me as we pass out on the sofa. I miss the way that my heart no longer beats for that brown powder, but now for him and being away from him as made me realise now how heavy each of these beats are. I miss the way a simple look from him can make my mind scramble and make my thoughts melt away faster the heroin ever could. I miss the stupid way he flustered over me, he had begun to make we wear a coat out, he had begun to wonder about the bruised that litter my body and he had begun to wonder around the way I change after leaving the flat.

Over the time I am gone I realise that the missing heart beats and the fast paced ones are a sign that maybe the letters on my wrist are right and maybe I was wrong and while there are still disfigurements in this house, maybe not all the foundations are rotting. I allow the ceasing of my chest, because maybe this element of reality is not as hideous as I picture it.

I miss the stupid little details that make him up, the small brush stroke that make up a master piece. I realise with him that princes can exist. That although they don't ride steeds, or climb towers, they still exist and he is one. **My sweet prince.** I denote delightfully as I prepare myself for another round of group therapy with a plethora of otherwise half-hearted people. I for once feel an ounce of pity, because now I wonder if I might finally have found the other half of my own beating muscle and this time it is not in the clutches of heroin.

When I finally leave the ivy covered walls of the rehabilitation centre I for once feel that a fairy tale could exist. That there are true happy endings out then, although my parents failed and although red spray painted words linger in my memory, I in this moment think briefly that maybe I might be one of the lucky ones, I might be my grandmother with the love coloured eyes and love tinged memories.

It's that night I meet James.

It's that night once more I realise that happy endings don't exist and that this system is failed. Because if it wasn't my soulmate wouldn't have somebody else's name.

I realise once more that reality really is as hideous as I pictured it being.

Once more I am faced with this façade of beauty with fractured foundations.

It is a house in which the foundations are built on fragile lies, fallacies of the world, which rot the very essence of truth. The disease among the foundations spreads like an infection crossing every particle unit the entire foundation is damaged, corrupted and false. The outside which is lined with red, yellow and brown is a façade. Built up layers of brick build to hide what's inside. It is a beautiful façade which hides broken foundations. Society is a lie. Society is a rotten foundation and once more I find myself to be one of those rotting foundations and I feel sick that I ever thought they were anything other than rotting. Because even from up here I can now smell the utter scent of damp destruction under the thumb of some wood eating fungous. In this second I wonder if it is only the wood they have broken.

The truth of my unrequited feelings continually beat me in the chest and this begins to hurt more than any playground bruising ever did. Because that, that could heal. Physical bruised no matter how coloured and sore heal. But this deep excavated pain in the now cavity of my chest will never heal, because for once I allowed myself to believe it was beautiful, but now I see how very hideous it is and it has left me broken. I had once healed my visions of the world, I could see colour in a monotone world and for once this was not altering of my blood with vapors, this was love. But now that same love has left me with only monotones once more and that pain will never heal. Because now I am forever reminded of this loss and it's pain haunts me with more vigor than words, hands and bruises.

The love I once felt is now only pain.

I realise I was foolish to think that society would be anything else but a lie, love cannot be made it can only be grown. Love is not mechanical, it cannot be forced and it cannot be predetermined. It is not this paper and it is not this pencil. Because if it would he would have loved me, because I know that it's his letters on my wrist. The letters stand out against my now only pale wrist.

**PHIL. **

It's only two nights later my white night arrives again and takes me away.

Now, even that is beginning to not be enough. Nothings enough anymore. Once upon a time that would make the pain melt away, but now that sharp stabbing feeling of utter devastation and heart break lingers in my fingertips, on my skin and more importantly in my chest. I still notice the stupid little details about him, but now I resent them a little. I resent the fact that his oceanic blue eyes now light up in his presence, not mine. I now notice how they pass out on the sofa to his rumbling words.

It would take a whole month for me to begin writing this. As, I wait for my white night to take me away forever, because maybe I was wrong and this white night is a savior.

_Because that is what white knights do after all isn't it? It's all they are good for. _


End file.
